Monthly Archives: September 2011

Integration of Augmented Reality experiences into marketing programs has been on the rise over the past few years. Previously I wrote on the topic of Augmented Reality & Brands.

On a recent trip to Canada I met with our Toronto team and we discussed a recent Red Urban execution for Volkswagen Canada. Red Urban incorporated mobile augmented reality with outdoor placements in bus shelters & billboards for the new VW Beetle campaign.

The execution starts with a call to action to see the juiced up beetle perform. The user is then prompted to download the VWJuicedUp app by going to VWJUICEDUP.CA.

Once downloaded the user is then prompted with next steps.

Once the user points their mobile device at the A/R marker the fireworks begin.

Sample Bus Shelter with AR marker

Juiced Up Beetle

Still Going. Note the VW Floating Logo

Here is a video of the Juiced UP VW Beetle.

Next is the Billboard Execution. Note the Marker highlighted below.

The AR animation interacts with multiple elements

Note the holes as the Beetle crashes through and then comes back again.

I am a fan of integrating emerging technologies into traditional methods and am always looking for the perfect intersection between campaign objectives and innovative solutions.

Credit to Red Urban as the agency, Bully! Entertainment with the Animation/Design & String as the AR platform.

Today multiple changes were rolled out across the Facebook platform leading up to the F8 developer conference. Outside of the changes to the newsfeed, merging of Top News & Most Recent, etc… One of the big changes you will immediately notice if you are an admin of a brand page is the new Friend Activity menu option that now resides directly below info.

This new option highlights users friends activity with a given brand page. The driver behind this is to show a more direct relationship with brand interaction amongst your friends in order to potentially strengthen engagement and consolidate brand related activity onto one tab that is directly tied to the brand.

This can also change the strategy for how a brand drives engagement on a post by post level as the availability/mandate of this tab now increases the need to not only drive acquisition of the Like, but to also focus on a sound engagement strategy.

From an admin perspective you cannot remove the Friend Activity option at this time.

Many new changes are on the way to the Facebook platform over the next few days. Keep your RSS feed subscribed here for the latest news that may potentially impact your brand’s Facebook page.

Photos can tell many stories and they are powerful representations of the world around us. It is no wonder that users have taken the simple task of taking photos with their iPhones to new levels with apps such as Instagram,Hipstamatic, PicPiz and Pose.

Instagram, a photo-sharing app for iPhone users, is quickly becoming a force for individuals & brands alike. With over 10 million users and an average of 1.3 million photos uploaded per day, it ties the ability to adjust your photo via multiple built in filters with socially enabled features such as sharing, liking, and commenting.

Why is Instagram attracting users and brands vs. say simply using Twitpic or another utility to take and share a photo? One reason may be the ability to easily customize photos where users feel in control and further expressing their personality & style with a simple user interface. The other thought is how Instagram enables social sharing across multiple channels with ease.

From the app, you have the ability to tag your photos with relevant hashtags, (#Starbucks) subscribe to feeds of individuals & brands as well as view the most popular submissions. In terms of social sharing, Instagram allows you to share your works of art across Twitter, Facebook, Email, Flickr, Tumblr, Foursquare and Posterous.

Brands have found innovative ways to incorporate Instagram into their social strategies to drive awareness & engagement. Those that use the medium well understand the opportunity to humanize the brand, incent users to create content on their behalf via unique hashtags & photo contests and it offers a quick and easy way to share visual content and of course engage users.

Below is a list of the Top 10 most followed brands & organizations on Instagram (As of September 15, 2011)

2. Starbucks = 91,157 – Starbucks understands the power of crowdsourcing. From their groundbreaking work with the My Starbucks Idea program to activating amateur photographers across the globe to tag #Starbucks with their Instagram enabled iDevices. You can go to starbucks.com/coffeehouse to see the latest images.

3. Burberry = 86,544 – Fashion & photography go hand in hand. It is no surprise that Burberry uses the service to showcase their professionally created visual imagery associated with their brand.

5. NPR = 65,972 – One of many news sources using Instagram to visualize the news.

6. Red Bull = 59,298 – Red Bull rings in at #6 with a healthy following. The brand executes hashtag photo contests and rewards users with likes as they show their affinity for the brand visually around the world.

10. Celtics = 35,433 – Events are a natural extension for Instagram. Sporting events in particular can generate a significant amount of visual content. By understanding and capitalizing on this the Boston Celtics round out the top 10 with over 35,000 followers.

The brands that are closer to the innovation end of the social marketing spectrum understand that it is not enough to simply rely on Twitter & Facebook but to ultimately be present, monitor & potentially engage in the channels where their brands are being discussed.

Many organizations view additional channels as spreading the brand too thin and fall into the trap of only leveraging Facebook & Twitter. I view each social channel as serving a specific purpose based on how consumers use the channel and the ultimate goals of the brand.

If you have the ability to define a strategy that incorporates various mediums while maximizing how they were intended to be used you can truly drive value for both the brand and the consumer. And yes there are branded conversations that happen outside of Facebook & Twitter.

The initiative started as they always do… with an idea. The idea of a crowdsourced VolksAd came from the very highly regarded Creative Director of Red Urban Toronto, Christina Yu.

Red Urban Toronto had completed serialized ads for the Volkswagen Golf GTI and wanted to extend the campaign from the two current TV spots to incorporate Facebook & YouTube.

Ad 1 – Drive Until: Courage (Chapter 1)

Ad 2 – Drive Until: Time (Chapter 2)

This is where I joined the project. Working closely with the Red Urban Toronto team, I was the strategic advisor for the execution across social channels.

When it came time to execute the VolksAd, the goal was to crowdsource all aspects of the upcoming commercial. From users commenting & voting on storylines, the script, model of the car, the cast, the music & the edit. The Red Urban Toronto team did a great job of executing the campaign.

By spacing the voting activities over multiple weeks, the team was able to maintain engagement and kept fans interested even to the point of livestreaming all 14 hours of the making of the making of!

By incorporating the names of the individuals who contributed during the campaign into the credits of the final edit, there was a sense of ownership for each individual for the finished product.

The results of the campaign were impressive. Active users jumped 140%, Fans of the Volkswagen Canada brand page jumped to 364,097, there were 119,647,537 total media impressions and over 2,070,936 Facebook impressions.

Here is the full case study video

Here is the finished edit including everyone who contributed to the final product

One of the more controversial posts over the past year was tied to my POV on 2D barcodes, specifically SnapTags vs. QR codes. This sparked an interesting conversation.

To follow up on that conversation, instead of getting into a philosophical discussion I will let this infographic sent to me by the SpyderLynk team kick-off the discussion. Would love to hear your thoughts after reviewing the infographic.

BlackFin360 Archives

Tom Edwards, Ad Age Marketing Technology Trailblazer and Chief Digital Officer, Agency @ Epsilon analyzes best practices and points of difference between Google Actions across the Google Assistant ecosystem as well as Amazon Alexa Voice Services.

In this video, Tom compares and contrasts Amazon Alexa Skills with Google Actions and discusses feature differences, outlines best practices associated with deploying skills and actions as well as key points to consider before submitting for final approvals.

Tom also discusses driving skill and action discovery as well as strategic thoughts tied to going beyond tactical utility towards full ecosystem considerations.

In this video, Tom analyzes the new features that are available as well as discusses topics such as the shift towards social messaging, the role of YouTube’s Uptime application and a preview towards the world of immersive co-viewing with YouTube in virtual reality.